I went to Rome with my family when I was in seventh grade, at an age altogether too young to appreciate what was happening. Lots of walking, I think, is what I would have told you if you asked me afterward what there was in Rome. Lots of old things made out of stone. I took a heap of pictures for my Myspace profile, which, when I review them now, completely amaze me. I walked those streets! I saw those ruins! How was I not totally, constantly in awe? Apparently very little of the historical significance of the city could break through my pre-pubescent angst-atmosphere.
But Rome was fast friends with my stomach. I ate fabulously and enormously and most often outside, no calorie left behind. The crowning meal of the entire experience was a spaghetti carbonara that I will never forget for as long as I am among the living, and that I will probably still be talking about in the afterlife. "Magic Pasta," I called it, ladling pancetta and Parmesan by the spoonful into my mouth. "I love Rome."
In the decade since seventh grade many things have changed, including my onetime ability to eat only cheese and bacon for an entire meal without subsequently collapsing and fusing with my couch. So I give you this, the product of my 12-year-old desire for that Roman carbonara and my 23-year-old stabs at adulthood: Magic Kale Salad.
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I suppose if you wanted to make this closer to carbonara you could plop a fried or poached egg on top — which now that I'm typing this I am so upset I didn't think of before — but even sans egg this thing is salad gold. It is filling and hearty, but the toppings keep it from being…you know, a salad that doesn't have bacon on it. Because seventh grade me would not have stood for such a salad, and sometimes I have to honor that little snarky lady in my past.
Perhaps embarrassingly, I have been bringing this salad to lunch in Ziploc bags. Just a salad in a bag, dressing and all, since the kale and sprouts are sturdy enough to stand up to it, riding the subway with me across the East River. I tuck it into the fridge between the home-brewed beer and the wheel of brie (hello, tech startup), and then dump it all into a bowl come lunchtime.
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